She kicked off her stilettos, sprawled across a sofa, and propped one foot up on the glass table in front of her. The entire sequence of moves was eerily similar to what I’d seen Finn do a hundred times before. Like it or not, he had more than a little of his mother in him.
Tucker sat down on the other end of the sofa, his drink in one hand and his phone in the other.
“I thought that tonight went exceptionally well, didn’t you?” Deirdre asked.
“Mmm.” That was Tucker’s only response.
“The exhibit was lovely, and everything went off without a hitch,” she continued, obviously fishing for a compliment, but Tucker kept ignoring her.
Deirdre frowned, but either he didn’t see her annoyed expression or didn’t care about it. No assistant worth his salt would treat his boss like that. Not if he wanted to keep his job. So why didn’t Deirdre just fire him and hire someone who would fawn over her night and day?
“Are you sure everything’s set for tomorrow?” Tucker asked, finally setting his phone down. “You can’t afford to have any problems.”
I frowned. The way he said that—“you can’t afford to have any problems”—was rather ominous. Tucker made it sound like Deirdre was in more dire straits than I’d imagined. She was a rich, powerful, and well-connected Ice elemental, so what did she have to worry about? The more I learned about Deirdre Shaw, the less sense I could make of her.
“Everything is set,” she said. “Don’t worry, Tucker, honey. Everything will go exactly according to my plan. I guarantee it.”
“Yes, you have guaranteed it, haven’t you?” Tucker raised his glass in a toast. “Well, then. Here’s to your guarantees.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she raised her glass too, and the two of them downed their drinks.
Deirdre’s phone beeped. She took it out of her clutch and read the message, a smile curving her lips. She sent back a quick text, then put her phone down on the glass table, got to her feet, and wandered over to the windows. She stared out into the night, almost as if she could see me watching her from across the street, but I was too well hidden in the shadows for that.
Not for the first time, I wished that I could just take her out with a sniper rifle. Bing, bang, boom. But Finn would never forgive me, especially not now, when he was so certain that her intentions were good.
“Is Blanco going to be a problem?” Tucker asked in a bored voice, texting on his phone again. “I heard your conversation at the museum. Nice way to twist a knife in her back, bringing up your ex the way you did. Then again, that’s something you excel at.”
My ears perked up. That was the first time Tucker had said anything remotely interesting since I’d been watching him and Deirdre, and it was the first time he’d done anything to acknowledge my existence besides nod at me whenever he came into the Pork Pit with her. Plus, a snide tone sharpened his voice, as if he was almost mocking her.
“Of course not,” Deirdre said. “I told you that I would deliver, and I will. You should have more faith in me.”
Tucker snorted, but he kept right on texting, as if he’d already dismissed me and any potential problems I might cause from his thoughts.
“Gin Blanco is a suspicious little bitch,” Deirdre said, coldness creeping into her voice. “But she is predictable. Just like Fletcher was.”
And that was the first time Mama Dee had ever let her true feelings for me show through her big, bawdy persona. Maybe tonight would finally be the night I got something that I could take to Finn, some sort of proof that she wasn’t what she seemed. I made sure that the microphone and camera were picking up her every word and movement. Then I leaned forward, willing her to say more about Fletcher, willing her to spill her guts to Tucker about everything that had really happened between her and the old man.
“Do you know what the bad thing is about being predictable?” Deirdre continued. “It makes you weak. It makes you vulnerable.”
She paused a moment and leaned even closer to the windows, smiling all the while. “Isn’t that right, Gin?”
I gasped, shock zipping through me like a lightning bolt, and I almost dropped my binoculars. Everything just stopped, as though Deirdre had frozen me in place with her Ice magic. Even my brain ground to a complete halt. When it finally started sputtering again, I frowned, wondering if I’d heard her right. If she’d actually said my name. If she knew that I was watching her.
Deirdre stared out the windows again, and this time, she did look straight at me, her face smug with triumph. More shock zipped through me, and the revelations hit me one after another, each one as brutal as a fist to the face.
She’d been playing me this whole time. She had realized that I would be suspicious enough to spy on her. It was what Fletcher would have done, and it was exactly what the old man had taught me to do. Even more than that, it was the predictable move, just like she said. I was betting it was part of the reason she’d taken up residence in this particular penthouse—to make it easier for me to keep tabs on her.
And for her to keep tabs on me.
I cursed, scrambled to my feet, and whipped around. Lights blazed on, illuminating me as clearly as if it were noon, and men stormed out of the access door and onto the roof. I threw my binoculars aside, palmed a knife, and stepped forward, ready to drive the blade into the chest of the first man. But he was closer than I’d expected, and he was already swinging the butt of his gun straight at my face.
I reached for my Stone magic to harden my skin and tried to twist out of the way of the coming blow, but I wasn’t quick enough.
His gun slammed into my temple, and the world went black.
20
I woke up in a cage.
My eyes fluttered open, then snapped shut again as the bright glare from the bare bulbs overhead stabbed into my brain. My head was already pounding from the hard hit I’d taken, but I swallowed down the groan that threatened to escape my lips. Because I had no idea where I was, only that I was in serious trouble.
And so was Finn.
My eyes snapped open again at the thought of Finn. I had to warn him that Deirdre had finally shown her true self. That she was up to something—something big. So I forced myself to blink and blink until my eyes adjusted to the light and I could examine my surroundings without adding to the constant throbbing already in my head and face.
I was in a warehouse, sprawled across a cold, dirty concrete floor. The walls were made of gray cinder blocks, but the sloped roof was metal and soared about fifty feet overhead. Forklifts of all shapes and sizes squatted here and there in the warehouse, along with heavy-duty wooden pallets that supported large crates and shrink-wrapped boxes. I had no idea what the containers held, but some of the writing on the sides was in another language. Russian, maybe.
I was lying in the center of a cage made out of bars that stretched from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. It probably served as a secure storage space for more valuable items like guns, drugs, and money. I looked from one side of the warehouse to the other. No guards, no gangsters, no goons of any sort. The lights were on, but nobody was home except me. Good. That gave me time to escape.
I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, then staggered to my feet and took stock of my injuries. Aside from the continued ache in my head and face, I was in one piece. After I was knocked out, they hadn’t done anything other than drag me in here. Fools. They should have already put a bullet in my head.
And that wasn’t their only mistake. The cage was sturdy, and the bars didn’t move at all when I tried to rattle them, but they were made out of regular iron and not silverstone. That meant that I could blast my way out of here with my Ice and Stone magic if I needed to.
But I decided to try something a little quieter first. I went over to the cage door, which was secured with a heavy padlock on the outside. Whoever had put me in here had taken my phone and all five of my knives, so I couldn’t jimmy it open that way. I could easily freeze the lock and then shatter it open with my Ice
magic, but I didn’t know where Deirdre might be lurking, and she might sense me using a large, sudden burst of power like that.
So I reached for the smallest trickle of my magic, letting it pool in the palm of my hand, until I had a single shard of Ice about as long and thick as a needle. I held my breath, looking and listening, but no one came running into the warehouse, so I felt safe enough to add another layer of Ice to my needle, then another, then another . . . until I had formed my usual Ice pick. I stopped, looking and listening again, but the warehouse was as silent and empty as before, so I reached for another trickle of magic and made a second Ice pick.
Once I had two picks, I released my magic, stuck my arms through the gaps in the bars, and went to work on the padlock. It was an awkward position, and the pounding in my head didn’t make it any easier. Time and time again, my picks slipped out of the lock.
“Come on,” I muttered. “Come on.”
If Finn were here, he would have already opened the lock, stuck his hands into his pockets, and been whistling while he strolled away. The thought made me smile and redouble my efforts.
Finally, the picks hit the necessary sweet spots, and the lock clicked open. I started to pull it off the door so I could open it and get out of the cage, but voices sounded outside the warehouse, along with several beep-beep-beeps, as though someone was punching in a security code.
So I put the lock back together as close as it would go without actually snapping it shut. It wasn’t my most brilliant plan, but as long as I was still in the cage, I could hope no one would do more than glance at the lock. I also reached up and probed my left temple. A goose egg had formed there, and I could feel the slash of a long cut that was still oozing blood. I dipped my fingers in the blood and smeared it down the side of my face. Then I leaned wearily against the cage bars, as if I were more seriously injured than I really was.
A giant guard opened the door, and Deirdre strode into the warehouse. She had changed out of her silver party dress and was now wearing a neon-purple pantsuit and matching stilettos. Her blond hair was sleeked back into a low bun, and her icicle-heart rune glinted under the lights. No doubt, the peacock was here to strut her stuff and crow about capturing me.
Tucker entered the warehouse next, dressed in a navy suit, although it was the two people trailing him who caught my attention: Dimitri Barkov and Rodrigo Santos.
Dimitri stopped in front of the cage and smirked at me. He was still wearing his tuxedo from the museum gala, although he’d ditched his bow tie and jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. Despite the styling grease on his toupee, pieces of his fake black hair had curled up in all directions, as though he’d sprouted a dozen devil horns on his head.
Given his sneers at the museum earlier tonight, it had been obvious that Dimitri was plotting something against me. Of course he would have aligned himself with Deirdre. She wouldn’t have even had to offer him anything other than my death to make it happen. I could have smacked myself for not realizing it sooner.
But Santos was the far bigger surprise. I’d thought that Deirdre might have had a hand in the bank robbery, but her genuine shock when Santos shot her had made me back-burner that theory. Just one of the many things I’d been wrong about lately.
Either way, it seemed as though Santos had been hiding out with Dimitri this whole time, which was why Silvio hadn’t been able to track him down. But Santos and Dimitri weren’t going to be problems for much longer.
And neither was Deirdre.
Santos also smirked at me. Instead of his usual dark, anonymous clothes, he was wearing a long, expensive black overcoat and shiny black boots. The front of his coat was open, giving me a peek at the dark gray clothes he wore underneath, although it seemed more like a uniform than a suit. Weird.
Tucker kept his distance from the cage, texting on his phone. Deirdre eyed me a moment, making sure that I was exactly where she wanted me, then turned to Santos.
“Is everything set?” she asked, her voice clipped and much colder than her usual syrupy-sweet drawl.
Santos nodded. “My crew and I are ready. Everything will go according to plan. Don’t worry.”
She gave him a flat look. “Well, perhaps this time you can manage not to shoot me.”
“I had to make it look good, didn’t I? Shooting Lane and slapping you around wasn’t going to cut it after Blanco started playing hero. Besides, you got the added bonus of saving your dear son. I got him to trust you, just like that.” The giant snapped his fingers.
So the whole point of the bank robbery had been about Deirdre ingratiating herself with Finn. No wonder she’d seemed genuinely upset. Santos shooting her hadn’t been part of the plan, but he’d done it anyway. Too bad he’d only grazed her instead of putting a bullet through her chest.
Deirdre’s red lips puckered, and anger filled her eyes at his mocking tone. It was obvious that there was no love lost between the two of them. Perhaps the giant would double-cross and kill her for me. Yeah, right. No way could I ever be that lucky. Besides, I wanted to end Mama Dee myself.
“Oh, yeah, the bank job went so well that you had to shoot your own men and leave with nothing,” I sniped, slurring my voice to add to my weakened appearance. “What are you going to do for an encore? Swipe some poor kid’s lunch money on the playground? That seems to me like that’s about all you can handle, Rod.”
Anger stained Santos’s cheeks. He opened his mouth to snipe back at me, but Deirdre held up her hand. “Don’t be an idiot. She’s just baiting you.”
I snorted and leaned a little more heavily on the cage bars. “Sugar, from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve surrounded yourself with idiots.”
“Mmm.” Deirdre’s noncommittal murmur had Dimitri and Santos eyeing her with suspicion. “Regardless, they were clever enough to capture the great Spider. Interesting nickname Fletcher gave you.”
I shrugged. “He thought it was appropriate.”
“Just like his name, the Tin Man.” Deirdre paused, her eyes gleaming with sly satisfaction. “Do you know why he decided on that particular moniker?”
I shrugged again. I had no idea what she was getting at.
She smiled. “He told me it was because he didn’t have a heart anymore. That I had ripped it right out of him. I always liked the idea of him never forgetting what I did to him.”
I gripped the bars. “What did you do to Fletcher? What’s the real story with you two?”
She glanced at her watch. “I suppose I have time to indulge you in this one last thing. Before I let Mr. Barkov dispose of you. He’s been so very helpful these past few weeks. He should be rewarded, don’t you think?”
Dimitri sneered at me again, his whole body puffing up with self-importance. He actually started cracking his knuckles, as if the thought of him beating me would frighten me. Idiot.
I focused on Deirdre again. “So what happened with Fletcher?” I didn’t even try to keep the eagerness out of my voice. This might be my last chance to get the truth out of her before one of us killed the other, and if I had to grovel to do it, then so be it.
“Just a typical story of a girl rebelling against her parents. We never got along. They thought that I should be a prim, proper prude like they were, with no more ambition than catching a rich husband to prop up the Shaw family fortune.” Deirdre shook her head. “But I had other plans. I was supposed to get my trust fund when I was eighteen, but my parents realized that I was going to leave Ashland the second I got the money. They changed the terms so I couldn’t access it until I was twenty-five. Even then, I realized that they’d just keep putting it off. My parents had already blown through their fortune, and they were going to spend mine too.”
“So?” I asked, not seeing her point.
“So I decided to stop them.”
“This is about your trust fund? Seriously?”
She shrugged. “Are you really that surprised? You’re an assassin, Gin. You know better than anyone else what people will do f
or money.”
She had me there.
“Once I realized that my parents weren’t going to give me my money, I decided to do whatever I wanted. Smoking, drinking, boys.” She grinned, but it was a sharp, predatory expression. “Lots of boys.”
“What about Fletcher?”
“Another boy took me to the Pork Pit, where I met Fletcher. He was quite handsome, charming too. Even better, I knew that my parents would never approve. He ran a barbecue restaurant, which was about as low-class as you could get, according to them. So I decided to have a little fun. I seduced Fletcher, made him think that I was this sweet young girl who totally adored him, and he fell for it. He was totally in love with me. It was amusing enough while it lasted.”
Deirdre paused, her gaze distant, as if she were seeing Fletcher as he had been back then. Her hand crept up to her icicle-heart necklace, her fingers stroking over the rune.
“So what happened? What changed?”
“I got pregnant.” Her nostrils flared with disgust, and she dropped her hand from her necklace. “I didn’t want the baby, but Fletcher was over the moon about it. He thought that we were going to get married and be this perfect little family. He was wrong.”
I thought back to the casket box full of mementos. “Fletcher gave you an engagement ring. I found it in a box of old photos. What did you do with the diamond from it?”
“I hocked it, of course, the day after he gave it to me, and had the diamond replaced with a glass chip. Fletcher didn’t know the difference until it was too late.” She chuckled.
The mocking sound made me grind my teeth, but I wanted to hear the rest of her story, so I forced my voice to stay steady. “What about Finn? Why did you keep him?”
“The idea of a baby put Fletcher even more under my spell, so I went along with it. I could see how useful it was going to be in the end.”
Her voice and face were cold, flat, and emotionless, as if she were reciting some history lesson she’d memorized long ago. It was such a complete change, such a total role reversal from the warm, over-the-top persona she’d shown until now. I’d thought all along that Deirdre was coldhearted, but seeing her complete lack of compassion or feeling up close jarred me much more than I’d expected. I had to keep reminding myself that this was the real Deirdre Shaw—and exactly what Fletcher had warned me about.
Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14) Page 19
